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Blake Clayton is an equity analyst at Citigroup, where he covers oil and gas companies and energy master limited partnerships. He is an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Clayton is the author of Market Madness: A Century of Oil Panics, Crises, and Crashes (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Commodity Markets and the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming in 2015). He received a doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied business economics and strategy. The recipient of the University of Chicago Endowed Fellowship, he holds dual master's degrees from the University of Chicago and Cambridge University.

In Market Madness: A Century of Oil Panics, Crises, and Crashes, stock analyst Blake C. Clayton tempers the craze surrounding oil exhaustion through a combination of historical investigation and sober, persuasive analysis. His book is a lucid, credible riposte to apocalyptic ravings about “peak oil.” Clayton examines how such panics have persisted through the decades, all unfounded, yet devastating to the market. Market Madness enjoins consumers, policymakers, and brokers to abstain from hysteria and remain informed about what the future of energy truly holds.

CFR adjunct fellow Blake Clayton draws on a century's worth of statistical data to offer a revolutionary new look at volatility and crisis in oil markets. Clayton explores the conditions in which oil supply fears arise, gain popularity, and eventually wane, and demonstrates the significant effects these stories have on financial markets.

The global energy map is being redrawn at an accelerated pace. All signs point to the United States becoming part of an increasingly hemispheric energy trade, both for oil as well as for biofuels like ethanol. The Middle East will still loom large in U.S. energy policy given its crucial role in the world oil market, but U.S. energy officials and companies are forging deeper ties with their counterparts elsewhere in the Americas.

Drawing on lessons from a Council on Foreign Relations workshop in January 2012, Blake Clayton and Michael A. Levi examine the connection between global oil markets and international relations, saying that in many cases the oil trade is politically consequential simply because policymakers believe that it is.

Blake Clayton says what's really behind New York's epic gasoline lines in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is the problem of getting gas and power to gas stations, with panic buying making things all the worse.

Blake Clayton says the biggest challenge of building the twenty-first century energy economy isn't just the transition from dirty fuels to cleaner, sustainable ones; it's about making the advances of the last two centuries available to the world's poorest people.

Blake Clayton argues that cyber attacks on oil and gas operations are the new face of energy insecurity, with vast potential for crippling effects on global energy prices and nations far beyond the Middle East.

Blake Clayton says Iraq is in a unique position to help take the edge off a global oil market under serious strain, but time will tell whether the country will achieve its lofty goals—or if they will remain a mirage.

Blake Clayton and Greg Sharenow explain how the threat of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release is a tantalizing tool to influence the oil market and consider whether the White House is the new Federal Reserve of oil.

In an article launching a new Forbes.com blog, "Risk and Return,"Blake Clayton says that President Obama, having learned the hard way last year that a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release can't reliably lower oil prices for very long, is likely weighing the potential political costs of a release versus its possible economic benefits.

Blake Clayton argues for greater transparency about the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve's capabilities to release oil to the market, particularly in light of profound recent changes in the North American oil landscape.

Blake Clayton argues that energy officials should look to the 2011 International Energy Agency-coordinated Strategic Petroleum Reserve release for insight into when it makes sense to draw on national oil stockpiles.

As Libya was in the throes of civil war, the International Energy Agency coordinated the release of emergency oil reserves for the third time in its history. CFR Fellow Blake Clayton analyzes the economic, political, and logistical dimensions of this episode, drawing lessons for future energy interventions.

As Cuba drills its first offshore oil well, the United States should anticipate the possibility of an oil spill, implementing policies that would help both countries stem and clean up a spill in a way that is minimally disruptive to the United States' Cuba strategy.